"J Herring" wrote in message
...


Experience is a great teacher. You covered a lot of items there...many
of which she has no need to
know, like 'safely carry' (she's not), cleaning (which would have to
include disassembly), dealing
with jams (call the Range Safety guy), and 'much more range time and
instruction'. If she wants to
be a good shot with various weapons and be able to disassemble and
reassemble then perhaps you're
right. But, she certainly doesn't *need* all that to be comfortable
with loading and shooting a
weapon - safely. The pertinent laws were part of the class. She fired
a revolver (.38 Special) and
an M&P 9mm. She has no need to learn about a lot of different weapons
and ammunition.


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Well, we'll have to disagree. If you think your wife (or anyone for
that matter) "doesn't need" to know how to disassemble, clean, deal
with jams (just call the RSO ???? ... I can't believe you said that)
..... then I'll have to make sure I never visit the range she shoots
at.

I bought some .380 "Snap-Caps" and spent an hour or so trying to
intentionally cause a jam in both the Walther PPK/S and the S&W
Bodyguard. I bought them purposely because they often don't work well
in some gun models .... just like some manufacturer's live rounds
don't always work well with certain gun models. I succeeded with
the Walther, causing a Snap-Cap to become wedged and stuck in the
chamber and the next Snap-Cap round in the magazine to jam up and out
of place behind it. In this situation, the magazine could not be
released (it was also jammed) and holding the slide back and shaking
the gun or pushing at the jammed round would not clear it. I finally
managed to get the jammed magazine round out, release and remove the
clip, but the chambered Snap-Cap wouldn't drop out. It was jammed
solid within the barrel. Finally got it out by lightly tapping on
the "lead end" with one of my cleaning rods.

I did this because a similar jam occurred the first time I used that
gun, except it was with live ammo. It took two of us to clear it, one
holding the slide back as far as it would go (it wouldn't lock) and
the other pressing the magazine release button while tugging on the
bottom of the magazine at the same time.

I learned that the Walther doesn't like ammo manufactured by
Independence. Since then I buy Winchester, Remington or Federal and
have not had any problems.

So what if something like this happened to your wife "on the range"
and the RSO wasn't around?